Bob Hubbard, Special Assistant to the Acting Administrator,
OJJDP, welcomed Coordinating Council members, visiting university
students, and other attendees to the quarterly meeting of the
Coordinating Council. Mr. Hubbard briefly reviewed the history
and statutory authority of the Coordinating Council. Created
in 1974 by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Act, the Coordinating Council is an independent body within
the executive branch of the Federal Government. Its functions
are to coordinate Federal juvenile delinquency programs, Federal
programs and activities that detain or care for unaccompanied
juveniles, and Federal programs relating to missing and exploited
children. The Attorney General is the Chair of the Council,
and the Administrator of OJJDP serves as the Vice Chair of
the Council. The Council has nine ex-officio members: from
DOJ, the Attorney General, the Administrator of OJJDP, and
the Commissioner of INS; the Secretaries of DOL, ED, HHS, and
HUD; the Director of ONDCP; and the Chief Executive Officer
of CNS. The Council also has nine non-Federal members who are
juvenile justice practitioners.

The Coordinating Council is required to make annual recommendations
to Congress. Its quarterly meetings are open to the public,
and notices of its upcoming meetings are published in the Federal
Register. The Council is a forum for the exchange of information,
ideas, and research findings and a mechanism for developing
systematic Federal responses to issues in juvenile justice
and delinquency prevention.

Terrence S. Donahue, Vice Chair of the Coordinating Council
and Acting Administrator of OJJDP, welcomed the Coordinating
Council to its quarterly meeting and focused on a discussion
of two new OJJDP initiatives: the Faith- and Community-Based
Initiative and the Serious, Violent Offender Reentry Initiative.

In 2002, Mr. Donahue explained, OJJDP will focus on serious
and violent juvenile offenders through four broad strategies.
In addition to the two new initiatives discussed in detail
below, OJJDP will develop a Targeted Community Action Planning
(TCAP) effort and enhance partnerships between Federal, State,
and local agencies. In the past, OJJDP has focused on comprehensive
planning. TCAP is an effort to move communities more quickly
into action-oriented activities rather than prolonged planning
efforts. OJJDP will enhance program development by assisting
in action planning and helping communities achieve specific
goals.

OJJDP will emphasize partnerships with State and local counterparts
to promote joint ventures and leverage resources. OJJDP will
issue competitive initiatives with its State justice counterparts,
favoring those in compliance with OJJDP's Act and those interested
in partnering with OJJDP and leveraging resources. The Faith-
and Community-Based Initiative will be one of the first initiatives
introduced under this model. Structuring the initiative in
this fashion willencourage sustainability and facilitate a
better, more cooperative relationship between Federal, State,
and local initiatives.

James Davids, Deputy Director of the Faith-Based Task Force,
DOJ, discussed various background issues that led to the development
of OJJDP's Faith- and Community-Based Initiative. In January
2001, President George W. Bush issued an Executive order creating
special centers to focus on faith-based initiatives in five
cabinet departments-DOJ, DOL, ED, HHS, and HUD. These centers
were asked to develop initiatives and pilot programs and to
answer two basic questions:

Do barriers prevent faith-based organizations from participating
in Federal programs?

What opportunities do faith-based organizations have to
participate in Federal programs?

Preliminary answers to these questions demonstrate that a
funding gap exists between the Federal Government and grassroots
organizations. A scant 0.4 percent of available Office of Justice
Programs (OJP) funding goes to faith-based organizations. Small
groups, faith based and secular, receive very little Federal
support relative to the social services they provide. OJJDP's
two new initiatives are the beginning of the President's effort
to enlist the "army of compassion." Mr. Davids urged
the Council's Federal partners to participate in this high-priority
domestic program.

Stanley Carlson-Thies, Associate Director, Cabinet Center
on Affairs of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for
the White House

Stanley Carlson-Thies, Associate Director, Cabinet Center
on Affairs of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for the
White House, brings his previous experience with the Center
for Public Justice, a think tank that focuses on welfare reform
and seeks to enlist the compassion and volunteerism of people
of faith to help their communities, to his new role. Faith-based
organizations (FBOs) and community-based organization (CBOs),
Mr. Carlson-Thies said, have been neglected through sins of
omission-barriers to participation-and sins of commission-the
lack of outreach. A recent report identifies 15 areas in which
there are barriers to FBOs' and CBOs' efforts to work with
the Federal Government. Barriers range from suspicions about
the legitimacy of the Federal Government working with FBOs
to the fact that Federal grant programs are very complicated
to access and administer.

Based on his experiences as the Governor of Texas, President
Bush wants to elevate and honor the multiple faith- and community-based
organizations that respond to the needs of their neighbors.
The President also wants to encourage and expand private giving
through tax law changes.

In spring 2001, HR7, the Community Solutions Act, passed in
the House of Representatives, but did not make it through the
Senate. New legislation encouraging the expansion of private
support will be introduced in the near future and will include
tax law changes to promote greater private giving and a significant
amount of additional technical assistance for FBOs and CBOs,
particularly small and novice groups.

Mr. Carlson-Thies's office is greatly encouraged by the programs
envisioned in OJJDP's two new initiatives. It is very difficult
to change an entity as large as the Federal Government, he
said, but initiatives like these promise quick and concrete
action as the government moves to change.

Terrence S. Donahue, Acting Administrator, OJJDP

Mr. Donahue recently visited Fort Wayne, IN, a city with a
population of approximately 200,000. Fort Wayne's southeast
quadrant is a high-crime area with inadequate services, housing,
and infrastructure, but that has a large number of small faith-
and community-based organizations. OJJDP's Faith- and Community-Based
Initiative will build on the capacity that already exists in
Fort Wayne and other areas: local organizations that know the
issues, the people, and the communities.

OJJDP's initiative targets small organizations, in particular,
because they are a consistent factor in areas with few resources
and because they have been underutilized. The idea underlying
the initiative is not to create new organizations, but to help
small groups across the country with missions they are already
performing. OJJDP's initiative recognizes the successes and
the unique local capabilities of faith-based and community-based
organizations and has created a program designed to build on
the organizations' capacity and provide new prevention, intervention,
and treatment services to their communities.

Because these FBOs and CBOs are generally small and not equipped
to manage grants, OJJDP will partner with designated State
agencies to fund a national network to help the organizations
in their expanded missions. The network, through designated
Centers for Continuous Capacity (CCCs), will assist local organizations
through training and technical assistance. The program will
start with the basics, training local groups on how to provide
mentoring, childcare, shelter, afterschool programs, tutoring,
and job training services that will focus on various high-risk
populations of youth.

CCCs will be chosen through State justice agency recommendations
and could be private, nonprofit, or for-profit organizations;
religious or educational institutions; or local governments.Each
CCC will identify neighborhood FBOs and CBOs that are attempting
to reduce or prevent serious juvenile crime in a particular
neighborhood and provide training and technical assistance
to the organizations through three or four coordinators. Each
CCC will provide management, staffing, organizational support,
and financial oversight of grant funds, as necessary. Grant
funds to each CCC are anticipated to be about $250,000 annually
and will be geared to enhance local capacity rather than to
supplant existing funding streams.

A CCC must demonstrate that its approach can be sustained
beyond the 3-year Federal and State funding period and will
be required to collect and report basic data on services and
outcomes. The CCC will be expected to produce written guidelines
for identifying, selecting, and supporting FBOs and CBOs; program
materials that describe the CCC and the communities and organizations
it serves; and annual progress statements.

The solicitation for OJJDP's Faith- and Community-Based Initiative
will be issued in January 2002. An independent, national evaluator
will be selected, and a technical assistance provider will
train the CCCs and provide ideas for implementation. Performance
will be measured according to how many people in FBOs or CBOs
have learned about, participated in, or delivered services
under this program. OJJDP will also measure FBOs' and CBOs'
capability and capacity to help with high-risk youth and determine
whether the organizations themselves believe that they can
do this work.

Discussion

Hank Oltmann, Director, Special Programs, CNS, suggested that
OJJDP coordinate with CNS programs, AmeriCorps and VISTA (Volunteers
In Service To America), which has full-time volunteers at offices
and commissions in every State.

Lorenzo Harrison, Administrator, Office of Job Training Programs,
Employment Training Administration, DOL, noted that various
DOL programs, including Job Corps, the Workforce Development
System, and the Youth Opportunity Grant Program, can participate
with OJJDP. DOL's Leadership Institute has trained 1,500 youth
workers in best practices in engaging young people in the Empowerment
Zones and/or Enterprise Communities.

In 2002, OJP will roll out the Serious, Violent Offender Reentry
Initiative, which will provide funding to State, local, and
tribal jurisdictions to strengthen established reentry strategies
andprograms. In its focus on the juvenile component of OJP's
initiative, OJJDP will identify, implement, and/or enhance
reentry strategies that prepare serious and violent juvenile
offenders to return successfully to their communities and seek
to build the knowledge base on best practices for successful
reentry.

Serious and violent juvenile offenders need to be prepared
for the successful return to their communities when they leave
correctional institutions and training schools. The juvenile
justice system is loaded with services and structures as young
offenders enter the system but provides very little as offenders
are released from institutional settings. The reentry period
is a risky time for offenders and their communities. Offenders
reoffend at a rate of 63 percent in the year following release.
Probation and parole staff have caseloads of as many as 125
offenders per officer and limited resources to handle them.
Juvenile offenders reentering the community need health services,
education, job training, life skills training, and housing.
Many are not welcome at home, where they may have victimized
their families or where parents may fear the offenders' influence
on siblings.

Serious youthful offenders are likely to be 16 or 17 years
old and to have been involved repeatedly in Part I and Part
II crimes. They are likely to be school dropouts and to have
been in and out of training schools or data reporting programs.
Serious youthful offenders are also likely to become part of
the 18- to 24-year-old serious young adult offender population,
a predatory group responsible for a large percentage of crime
in the United States. OJJDP wants to intervene in the lives
of serious youthful offenders before they move into that hardcore
group of young adult offenders. A reentry program should bring
offenders back into their communities through a controlled
process that is monitored by a clear authority. The reentry
program should assess the needs of offenders and develop a
structured plan for reentry that provides access to a range
of services and creates positive peer group and community connections
for offenders through FBOs and CBOs.

The target populations of OJJDP's Serious, Violent Offender
Reentry Initiative are juvenile offenders ages 14 to 18 and
juvenile sex offenders. The initiative's bottom-line goals
are to reduce recidivism, enhance community safety, and encourage
returning offenders to become productive, law-abiding citizens.
OJJDP wants to leverage existing State programs and activities
and provide assistance, in particular, to those States that
have begun the process of establishing reentry programs. Eventually,
OJJDP would like at least one juvenile reentry program to exist
in every State.

OJJDP's Serious, Violent Offender Reentry Initiative will
include three phases. The first phase will include institution-based
programs. Some States begin the reentry process within their
correctional institutions by establishing cell block areas
for soon-to-be-released offenders, linking offenders to services
in the community, and preparing offenders psychologically for
leaving the structured environment of the institution. The
second phase will focus on offenders' actual reentry and the
transition to community-based programs. Current reentry programs
often consist of nothing more than a bus ticket home. Without
a plan to reintegrate offenders into thecommunity or to alter
the lifestyles of young offenders, they will reoffend. The
third phase of OJJDP's initiative will focus on community-based,
long-term support for offenders and the stabilization of the
reentry population.

Although there are a few reentry models (e.g., drug courts
or courts for lesser crimes), courts have rarely addressed
the reentry needs of the serious, violent offender. Mr. Donahue
and others visited a promising model reentry court in Fort
Wayne, IN. Under the model, offenders returning to the community
initially live in a structured, quasi-secure residence and
are linked to an FBO or CBO that provides them a sense of belonging
in the community. Under the leadership of a judge, offenders
and community service providers actively participate in the
reentry program and are bound by their obligations to the court.
Indiana's reentry court, funded by redeployed resources of
the Superior Court, housing assistance from the State Department
of Corrections, and evaluation assistance from DOJ's Bureau
of Justice Assistance (BJA), includes the following essential
elements:

A clear and present authority as offenders return to the
community. In Indiana, the authority is a Superior Court
judge who leads reentry court on Fridays, but the authority
could also be a parole commission or similar group.

A detailed assessment process. Assessments range from substance
abuse treatment needs and education levels to employment
readiness and life skills.

A concrete, integrated reentry plan, based on the assessment
process.

The utilization of community resources, including housing.

Levels of graduated sanctions.

The involvement of local law enforcement. Law enforcement
agencies should be informed about offenders returning to
the community-not to track or harass them, but to monitor
them and help them succeed.

The utilization of FBOs and CBOs.

As for its Faith- and Community-Based Initiative, OJJDP wants
to work with and encourage existing programs and efforts but
does not want to supplant existing funding streams from its
own formula grants or from those of its sister agencies.

Discussionand Closing Remarks

Terrence S. Donahue, Acting Administrator, OJJDP

Mr. Donahue polled the Council for comments and interest in
partnering in OJJDP's two new initiatives. Mr. Donahue will
visit each of the agencies to discuss OJJDP's initiatives in
more detail and to develop partnership plans.

Bryant Applegate, Special Counsel, HUD, called the initiatives
a great effort and noted that HUD is very involved with FBOs
and CBOs.

Robert Babbage, Jr., Senior Managing Partner, InterSouth,
Inc., said that the Faith- and Community-Based Initiative's
CCCs could have a powerful effect as a multiyear endeavor and
supports both of the initiatives.

Larry Brendtro, President, Reclaiming Youth, called the efforts
a science-based, positive step for youth development and a
wonderful opportunity to awaken the sleeping giant of the FBOs.

Mr. Babbage introduced a motion suggesting that the Coordinating
Council offer its formal support of OJJDP's efforts to date
in the area of faith-based initiatives and the ongoing involvement,
especially in the areas of reentry and Centers for Continuous
Capacity, in other programs that might be developed. The motion
was seconded by Dr. Brendtro and unanimously passed by the
Coordinating Council.

The next meeting of the Coordinating Council will take place
in March 2002. Mr. Donahue thanked the participants for their
work and adjourned the meeting.